Reconstituting and protecting our oceans
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Inside: EDITORIAL
Reconstituting and protecting our oceans ENERGY SECTOR ANALYSIS
Research in Earth’s frozen wastelands ENERGY SECTOR ANALYSIS
Waste-plastic processing provides global challenges and opportunities ENERGY QUARTERLY ORGANIZERS CHAIR Shirley Meng, University of California, San Diego, USA Andrea Ambrosini, Sandia National Laboratories, USA Kristen Brown, Commonwealth Edison Company, USA David Cahen, Weizmann Institute, Israel Russell R. Chianelli, The University of Texas at El Paso, USA George Crabtree, Argonne National Laboratory, USA Elizabeth A. Kócs, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA Sabrina Sartori, University of Oslo, Norway Subhash L. Shinde, University of Notre Dame, USA Anke Weidenkaff, University of Stuttgart, Germany M. Stanley Whittingham, Binghamton University, The State University of New York, USA Steve M. Yalisove, University of Michigan, USA
“Research in Earth’s frozen wastelands” title image: Ice-filled fractures near the top of artificial permafrost formed in limestone after 23 cycles of simulated winter-summer freeze-thaw. The block is 45 cm high. Credit: Julian Murton. “Waste-plastic processing provides global challenges and opportunities” title image from Dreamstime.com.
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“ Ben, I want to say one word to you. Just one word: Plastics.” — Mr. McGuire to Ben, The Graduate (1967)
“ Plastic is very much on the menu.” — Prince Charles, Our Oceans Summit (2018)
Reconstituting and protecting our oceans
The Graduate was already an iconic movie by the time I started my graduate studies. It was always double-billed-screened with Harold and Maude on every graduation weekend! The word ‘plastics’ was immortalized and remained etched on one’s psyche. Today, we find ourselves in the next millennium, and the chance of finding plastic particles in our seafood is very high, prompting Prince Charles’ comment, and yes, plastic is everywhere like Mr. McGuire predicted, without full implications! Between 1 and 2 million tons of plastic are entering our oceans each year. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California, is estimated to contain more than 1.5 trillion pieces of floating plastic over an area estimated to be more than 1.5 million square kilometers. If not removed quickly, these plastics will break down into microparticles under the sun and other environmental factors, enter (or might have already done so) the marine life, and ultimately find their way into our food. Collaborative efforts between San Francisco and Rotterdam are already under way to remove these pieces. A 2000-foot cleanup contraption, known as Wilson, created by Boyan Slat, a Dutch entrepreneur, was launched in September 2018 for a yearlong series of tests. However, it was reported that Wilson was being towed back to San Francisco during the first week of January 2019 for repairs. While these sporadic efforts will continue, it’s important to address this problem at its c
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